February 6, 2009

2 Timothy 3:1 - This know also, that in the last
days perilous times shall come.

Friends, please
pray for Walter Hoye, III. He is on the February page of the
Priests for Life calendar. Also, please read the article below
and try to host prayer rallies, youth rallies, town hall
meetings, go to the sentencing or whatever Holy Spirit leads you
to do! Remember that my uncle, Dr. King said "injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere?" Here Walter is exercising
his constitutional rights of free speech in defense of the civil
rights of little babies, and he attacked with unjust laws. Where
is the justice in this? God help us!

City of Oakland Tries to
Railroad Black Pro-life Activist

Posted by: Craig DeLuz

01/13/2009

Last year, Oakland city council
members to pass a "Mother May I" ordinance, prohibiting
approaching within eight feet of women entering abortion clinics
without their consent. The penalty for illegally approaching a
person to talk or hand out a leaflet is one year in jail and/or
a $2000 fine.

On May 13, 2008, Rev. Walter Hoye,
an African-American pastor who feels a special calling to work
for the end of the genocide-by-abortion taking place in the
African-American community was arrested for allegedly violating
the ordinance. One of the witnesses against him was an Oakland
city attorney who was secretly watching from a car. In an e-mail
to the clinic director, the city attorney said the escorts' use
of signs to block Rev. Hoye "was creative and seemed to be
effective."

The district attorney then
expanded the complaint to include four counts, two for
"unlawful" approaches and two for allegedly using "force, threat
of force, or physical obstruction" against two of the clinic
escorts. At a pre-trial hearing in July, Rev. Hoye's attorneys
cross-examined these "victims." The escorts admitted that Rev.
Hoye never used force against them, threatened them, or blocked
them. They proudly testified that they routinely block Rev. Hoye
to prevent patients from seeing his sign. Nevertheless, the DA
has not dismissed the charges against Rev. Hoye.

"The district attorney's office
appears to be using these trumped-up charges as leverage to
pressure Rev. Hoye into giving up his free speech rights," said
Hoye's attorney Mike Millen. "The threat of four years in jail
is a potent one, but my client is more interested in getting the
truth out, both on the sidewalk and in the courtroom."

Here is a breakdown of the trial
from Rev. Hoye's attornies at the Life Legal Defense Foundation.

The trial of Rev. Walter Hoye is
nearing conclusion, after a week of testimony, mostly from
prosecution witnesses, about Mr. Hoye's alleged activities at
the
Family Planning Specialists clinic in Oakland, California.

Unbeknownst to these witnesses
and the district attorney, however, an associate of Mr. Hoye had
been videotaping from across the street on both the days on
which Mr. Hoye was accused of violating the law. Thus, until the
defense revealed the existence of the videotape during
cross-examination, the witnesses conjured up phantom patients
whom Mr. Hoye had allegedly harassed, as well as claiming that
he threatened two escorts and the clinic director.

The most egregious testimony came
from the first witness, clinic director Jackie Barbic, who
testified that, while watching Rev. Hoye for about 20 minutes
from the building lobby, she saw him approach within a few feet
of six to eight patients, including one who put up her hands in
front of her face to ward off Rev. Hoye.

She testified that after seeing
these approaches, she went outside with a tape measure to show
Rev. Hoye what eight feet looked like. According to her
testimony, Rev. Hoye then sauntered toward her, with a "smirk"
on his face, until he was within two feet of her; all the while,
she was backing off, saying "Stay away from me! Back down! Back
away!" with her hands held up to protect herself. During her
testimony, her voice choked with emotion as she described how
fearful and intimidated she was.

On cross-examination, Ms. Barbic
and the jury watched the video of this incident. The video
showed Ms. Barbic approaching Rev. Hoye and pointing a tape
measure at him--and Rev. Hoye not moving an inch. In the video,
she can be seen lecturing him, and then talking to others. Mr.
Hoye moved away. A few minutes later, the same scene plays out
again, with Ms. Barbic again pointing the tape measure at Rev.
Hoye, and him moving down the sidewalk in a different direction.

When Ms. Barbic was asked if
either of these were the incidents she was talking about, she
immediately responded that these were not, and that there was a
third incident with a tape measure that occurred later. Contrary
to her earlier testimony detailing her movements that morning,
she now claimed that the video only showed when she had come
down earlier in the morning to explain to the escorts where 100
feet from the clinic started. She also claimed that she had been
called down to investigate the presence of a moving van parked
near the front of the clinic, because she had to make sure there
wasn't a bomb in it. The district attorney asked her if she was
"100% certain" that the incident on the video was not what she
had testified about earlier, and she confirmed that she was 100%
certain that this was not it and there was a later incident when
Mr. Hoye threatened her just as she had described.

There was, of course, no later
incident, as the remaining video of the morning showed. Ms.
Barbic's other testimony was also contradicted in virtually
every particular either by the video or by other prosecution
witnesses. Mr. Hoye did not approach any patient across the
street; no patient shielded herself from him; Ms. Barbic had
already talked to the men loading and unloading the moving van
an hour earlier; Ms. Barbic had only watched Mr. Hoye for a
minute from inside the building.

After the existence of the
videotape was revealed to the prosecution, there were no more
claims that Mr. Hoye had made any threatening gestures toward
anyone, although escorts did claim more approaches to phantom
patients. Despite the implosion of Jackie Barbic as a witness,
the district attorney kept trying to conjure evidence of a
"threat of force" from Mr. Hoye out of nothing.

One escort claimed she felt
intimidated when she saw Ms. Barbic approach Mr. Hoye with the
tape measure and tell him to back off, and "Walter didn't move.
He just stood there." In this escort's mind, the law required
Rev. Hoye to back away from the clinic director, and the fact
that he didn't do so was perceived by her as very intimidating.
Or so she testified. Upon cross-examination, it was revealed
that she had never mentioned this alleged intimidation to the
police or the district attorney until after the district
attorney had already filed the charges against Rev. Hoye for
allegedly intimidating her. In other words, the district
attorney first filed the charges naming her as a victim, and
then went desperately searching for evidence to back it up. (The
court dismissed this charge at the close of the prosecution's
case.)

In another case, one of the
"victims" claimed that she felt "creepy" when Mr. Hoye spoke to
her, warning her not to trip on the curb, after she moved in
front of him to cover up his sign. Both her testimony and the
video confirmed that she repeatedly walked up to Rev. Hoye and
took up a position either directly in front of him or slightly
to the side, holding a blank sign in front of Rev. Hoye's sign.
As he moved up and down the sidewalk, so did she. When asked
why, if she felt intimidated, she didn't move away, she replied
that it was more important that she remain in front of him "to
prevent women from seeing what is on his sign."

Indeed, the escort witnesses were
unanimous in this point: that the job of an escort is to prevent
women from reading Rev. Hoye's sign or hearing his message. This
was testified to repeatedly, in completely unambiguous terms:
"The purpose of holding the blank cardboard is to prevent women
from seeing the message on his sign." They also acknowledged
that the message on the sign was "Jesus loves you and your baby.
Let us help." And what does Rev. Hoye say to women? "Can I talk
to you for a minute about alternatives?" Those messages are
"harassing" and "intimidating" and need to be censored.

The jury has now seen the
entirety of the videotapes from these two dates as part of the
defense's case in chief. The trial should conclude early next
week.

The case is People v. Hoye, No.
541279.

There is no doubt in my mind that
this is a case of malicious prosecution that almost boarders on
a conspiracy to deprive Rev. Hoye and other Pro-life advocates
of their constitutionally protected right to free speech.

I would ask that you support
Walter and others who do what he does by contacting Alameda
County District Attorney Tom Orloff and asking that he open an
investigation into this prosecution of Rev. Hoye, including:

1) possible prosecution of Jackie
Barbic for perjury;

2) whether
there was prosecutorial misconduct in charging Walter Hoye with
using "force, threat of force, or physical obstruction" against
escorts without any evidence that he had at any time done so;
and

3) whether
there was prosecutorial misconduct in continuing to prosecute
Hoye for those crimes in the face of mounting evidence that they
were totally lacking in factual basis.